Getting a tattoo is all about the pain and can you and do you want to handle it. For me, it’s a meditation of sorts. I use meditation and breathing techniques because I know what I’m doing is going to have a life long affect. This is something I am putting into a part of my body, into my skin, for the world to see when I want them to. It’s also very much for a reason, and a purpose that is completely and soley my own. No one makes this decision for you. You don’t just get a tattoo because it’s cool. This is something that has to be very much an alone me kind of decision. I remember when I went to my first one, I reacted in this exact same way. It was somewhat of a ‘turning point’ in my life since I remember it so well. This time around, I am even happier then the last time. This tattoo is brighter and better too. Even though the other tattoo is still kickin and is bright in it’s own right, this one, this new one, it’s loud, proud and speaks to me. It’s a very intimate yet public tattoo. I told the internet world as best I could. I don’t know yet who I want to know about this at work. The roommate has work of his own and he was very appreciative of what we got. The ginger is too ‘heady’ for ‘ink’ and so even though I showed it to me, I don’t think he cares. There are tattoo people, and there arent. No big deal. Doesn’t matter if it ain’t your thing, don’t get me wrong.

This new tattoo is an homage to the 12 years of my life that I dedicated to them. It’s been 2 years since the last show. 2 years of a new life. While they aren’t around now, because they broke up with us of course. but even if they were to start playing again, which I know they will, they just have to, it won’t be the same for me. I will go to a show or two, but it will never be what it was, just like I won’t be what I was in those years. It’s time to let go and stop being all dramatic about it. The tattoo is the last. It’s the last number in the 13# program of letting go of something in your life that needs to be let go. Well, maybe not that serious, but that’s sometimes how it feels and this is really me sharing this much of my thoughts. . That part of my life is past now. And this tattoo is there to tell the story for me when I can’t tell it. It’s to tell the world, loud and proud what is a part of me and a part of me forever. When I am 90 years old, I will still be telling stories about driving next to the tour bus and seeing Page open up the curtain and wave at us. We were in two cars, with walkie talkies and pulled a switcheroo so that the other car could see the boys too. They saw us do it, I know they did and so they opened up the curtians for the other car too. It was things like that that made it all so special. They were able to talk to us all. In small and non verbal ways 😉 and we got it and so yea, that is the reason why I got what I did.

The sound of the guitar pierces into the most delicate areas of the soul and fills in the holes like a colored pencils fill in the black ink lines of a coloring book. The melody is what gets ya moving..and keeps the pain away..

Ya know, I wish that IMAX movie with BB King, The Roots and Trey would be released. Even if its just to DVD. I would love to see that again. Seeing it the first time was enough, don’t get me wrong. Seeing yourself on that huge of a screen can be somewhat

boy…….

Scary. But remembering

man….

the actual taping of the movie, waiting from 6am until late in the evening….

god……

waiting in hopes of being picked to be in the audience of a movie with your guitar hero…

shit….

is another one of my favorite Trey related life memory crazy experiences that I have had. I will try here to remember what I can. First off, I hope that the girl I went with will hopefully forgive me for what I did to her. I don’t know if there’s anything I can do beyond asking for that forgiveness. I was on tour with herand we had some good times and some bad and this story is one of the great times that I’d like to remember as positive and not negative.

Phish was on their first hiatus and us rmp internet phishheads were a bit stir-crazy. Some of us had gone back to school, some of us had gotten part time or full time jobs and we just basically watched an internet clock tick and an internet candle burn until they announced that Phish would tour and when it would happen. It was in early 2001 when I made an e-friend on rmp again, one of the hundreds of cool people that I have met through that internet message board. She was wanting to party with me and suggested we do something absolutely crazy, last minute and fun. She suggested that we go to the IMAX movie taping that Trey was doing the following day and go with her to try and get in the taping as an audience member. I lived in Oregon and she was just a few hours away by plane. I decided, fuck it, I’ll do it. I’d been flying once a month across the country following the Trey Solo tour, visiting JJ down at her house in Orange County, going here, going there, even visiting my family, so flying wasn’t anything I feared. I went to the airport, grabbed a last minute ticket, bought some magazines and some bottled water for the quick jaunt down and settled into my seat with a quick prayer. I hadn’t ever met these So Cal RMP kids before, but I had spent hours talking on aim and on the message boards and on email with them. When you talk with people over the net, i t can be easy to share the most intimate thoughts that you have. It seems somehow safe, I mean I’m still doing it now, almost 12 years after my first internet experience. And one of the first friends I met back then I’m still friends with now.

Comin down on me, shouldn’t a took more then you give…down on me…broootthheerrr…brooottthhheerrr…wolfman’s brother…

So here we are, Im sitting on a plane, heading down to southern california. I think two people know where I’m going. I’m meeting two people whom I’ve never met and we are going to stand in line for at least 8 hours to maybe get picked to be in the audience of a movie about music and the guitarist of my favorite band was goign to perform. As far as we knew, it was free and we might even possibly be in a movie. There were maybe 20 people in the entire plane in scattered in seats all up and down the front and back of the plane. It was going to be a comfortable ride, no one to share the row with. Plenty of room to stretch out and read a book for the next few hours. These were the kind of flights I looked forward to.

All of a sudden, I heard the engines revving up as we got ready to move into position at the end of the runway to get ready for take-off. Suddenly, I’m not sure exactly what happened, but everyone in that plane now realized that we were not going anywhere on that plane. I don’t remember what happened but The captain announced that the plane was heading back to the gate and that we would get help with our trip plans at the counter once we deplaned back at PDX. Now I had a strict schedule. The audience participation line was set to start lining up at 6am and it was getting later and later in the evening. I was slowly losing my shot to even go to this taping. One of the Southern California airports actually closes because of noise and I was afraid that was the one that I had to fly into. I was frantically calling my friends on the cell phone and chatting with the woman from the airline trying to work out the best situation. I didn’t know if I could fly into this other airport and still make it to the line in time the next morning. We were starting to enter the territory of doing this on possibly no sleep at all. I was able to finagle both a free flight and a free hotel room as long as I flew into a different city and my e-friends would met me at the airport, we crashed and slept for a few hours at the hotel and then headed out for the line up at the movie taping warehouse.

We didn’t know if there would be anyone there at all waiting to be in the audience of this movie. I mean BB King, The Roots. And most trey/phish fans were from the northeast. Eventually we found out that some of the audience were paid extras. They got to come in and get in line around 10am. Of course it was possible that other people were flying in for it too like I was. THere were a lot of phish/trey folks that were readyto go anywhere to see anything that they/he was doing music wise at the drop of a hat . At least I knew I wasn’t alone in doing crazy things like this. What made the west coast events more fun was the audience participation. The LA backstage fan base that I knew were somewhat well known people and that was always very intimidating for me. My tour partners, forget i t. They were all naturals. Just call me the fly on the wall. I didn’t have any of my backstage connections at this movie taping and I was almost grateful. THe backstage situations could sometimes get scary and uncomfortable if you did or said the wrong thing to the wrong person.

The entire idea for me for this trip was to get down, close, in front as close as possible to the performers. I didn’t want to necessarily be 10 inches from Trey, infact I preferred to be kinda to his side and that’s exactly where I ended up. Rail rats I guess you could call all of us. That’s what most of us were. There were also tapers, guitar nuts, there were beautiful girls wanting to hook with the band and then there were fans like me, rail rats. People wanting the visuals of the band, along with the lights and the music all in one big mis mash.

Do something like a movie taping with Trey in the northeast and you’d have a riot on your hands. This IMAX movie taping was during the first hiatus and so some of us would do whatever it would take. You know us, we are the ones with the tattoos and professionally framed photos hanging in our living rooms.

Rye Rye Rocko

Bid you to have any spike, man

Run run run run run run run…..

We, amster and me, and her other friends who’s names have been lost in the fragments of time, had to figure out how to get to this certain warehouse door, just down the street from the Forum by 6am to be first in line in hopes of being picked to participate in the taping of the audience portion of an IMAX moving production by Certs. It involved musicians, live performances and backstage access. It couldn’t have been that hard. Wait in line, go in, they play, and we listen.

Comefrom top the mountain baby, where people come to pray

come from top the mountain baby, where the people come to pray ain’t no truth in action, less you believe in it anyway, I was riding down the road one day..Whoa possum….your end is the road.

5:30am came quickly and we hopped in the car and headed to the warehouse door. We got in line, were the first people inline and settled in for what would end up being an all day and night adventure. At about 10:30, a couple hundred people showed up and us early folks were led inside this huge metal warehouse to stand in line again. The other new couple hundred people were L.A. actors and actresses doing a call. They were going to be paid to be in the audience for this movie while we were all hoping to get in and not get paid. The entire process took all day long but finally we found ourselves in a line, at the top of a small sports arena, the top portion had been curtained off with a thick black vinyl type curtain and we could hear Trey playing with BB King. We had missed the first jam session but they were finally leading us down into this very small intimate circle. THere were about 6 rows of 10 people onthe floor and a couple hundred people in seats around the entire place. Emma and I, who had ran into each other early on in the morning while waiting in line found ourselves together at the side of the stage.

An intake of breath, had punctured my soul, let me know, i need to know

How much of our lives do we spend wondering what other people are thinking? Specially when you are in silence with the other person. You can say so much by just having a non verbal conversation. If anything they are a better more positive and truer way for two people to communicate. I think that is a more intimate way to communicate then even touching. If my hubby can read my mind to the point that he finished my sentence then that is fantastic and it makes me so awkwardly happy that I just don’t know what to do in that instant of time right before making the correct judgment on how someone else is going to react to your reaction.

The horns step back to allow the rhythm of the acoustic guitar and a few whistles from the crowd as the sound starts as a small ball and is slowly building bigger as the horns step back in. Even an instrumental can have that release you just have to listen harder.

Been drifting for years at sea, but now you’ve come along, to rescue me…the fog is lifted..we got the moon and the stars above..

This song has always touched a part of me that I have never had touched before. Part of my heart that I didn’t know music could even get to. It opened me up to a love that was coming but was not there yet. It was getting me ready for the hubby. Everything that I did until I met him was get ready and learn lessons so that I would recognize him and know what to do to help him when he needs it. I hope that he realizes how much I love him.

At the bank, fill the tank, beneath my feet and above my head, cuz the fog is liftin, we got the moon and the stars above.

Even though the voices falter and are not perfect, no human is while playing music. Sometimes the vibration of music is so far out of reach that the magician (musician ) can’t quite reach the right note. Then trey will start noodling that Languedoc and start pulling energy from the same place the hose pulls energy from. It’s strings I imagine. Strings like the strings on his and mike’s instruments. Music, what a powerful and misunderstood thing. If anyone could harness the power of music, boy would we never need another coal worker or oil company. We’d just have festivals once a month to generate the energy each town needs for the next month. Every state would have that one band that causes that state to all go into overdrive. Everyone drops everything they are doing to go see that band and all that happiness and energy is harnessed to light the homes of the people who are giving of their own energy to help others.